


The Mendoza Line

by CamouflageCamel



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Blind Date(s), Coming Out, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Hanai has Anxiety Issues, M/M, Surprise Pairing, Trouble In Paradise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamouflageCamel/pseuds/CamouflageCamel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanai’s parents want to set him up with the perfect girl. Hanai politely objects to anything of the sort. So does Tajima.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mendoza Line

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd.

“Azusa, have you been thinking about kids?”

Hanai freezes, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, and stares at his mother. She smiles and cocks her head to one side, as if her question is completely innocent and not at all unrelated to the conversation preceding it.

“Kids are... nice?” is his rather eloquent answer.

“No, no.” She laughs and passes the rice over to his father, who’s giving him an intense look. “I meant about grandchildren. For us.”

This is what makes Hanai sort of dread these family dinners. Because he occasionally gets homesick, he makes the effort to take the train back up to Saitama at least once a month and eat dinner with his parents and his sisters. Unfortunately, the topic of conversation has recently been shifting away from his studies, and has been focusing more and more on his love life. Which normally wouldn’t bother him, except for the fact that he’d never really come out to his parents at the end of high school like he’d promised Yuu he would.

He can make excuses, like _‘It didn’t seem like it mattered’_ or _‘The timing just wasn’t right’_ , but the truth is that he'd been scared as hell that they’d completely flip if they knew. He’s still scared, to be honest. Thus, his extended stay in in the closet. It’s actually quite comfortable there.

He tunes back into the conversation to find that it’s still going strong without him. “It’s been a while since you’ve dated, right? “ His mother looks thoughtful. “I can’t even remember the last time you introduced us to a girl.”

Hanai can. Second year of undergrad, when he’d finally brought a friend home to dinner to get his parents off his back. She’d known that he was unavailable, and had really been in it for the free meal (as most college students are).

“In any case,” she continues, “we were thinking about introducing you to someone.”

“Oh.” Hanai tries to think of a way to say _‘That is a terrible idea’_ without actually saying it. He settles on another “Oh”, that he hopes succinctly summarizes his feelings about the suggestion.

Apparently it doesn’t, because his mother barges on, her eyes alight with glee as she hurriedly explains the details to her son. “She’s twenty-three, and just started working at Asuka and Haruka’s school as a home economics teacher. Just think about it, Azusa: you’ll never have to cook again!” She titters into her hand a bit and shakes her head. “Although that’s thinking a bit too far into the future, I suppose.”

Damn right it is. Hanai turns his gaze to his sisters, who give him identical shrugs, and then to his father, who has a warm, encouraging smile on his face.

“It’s about time you settled down,” he says. “You’re the one who has to continue the family name, right?”

And how can he say no to that?

 

 

“So my parents started talking about kids again.”

Yuu chews thoughtfully at his lower lip, gaze still focused on the television in front of him. “We can always adopt,” he suggests.

“That’s not really the issue here.” Hanai leans over the edge of bed to look at Yuu, whose eyes are glued to the screen as he taps away at the controller in his hand. Twenty-two and still utterly obsessed with video games. It doesn’t surprise Hanai, really. “The problem is that they want me to actually _have_ kids. Like, with a girl.”

Yuu has the gall to actually laugh at that: he does it with his head thrown back, eyes closed as he bursts into a loud fit of giggles. His lack of attention prompts his character to die on screen, which serves him right, really.

After some time, he wipes some tears from his eyes, cranes his neck back to look at Hanai, and smiles that brilliant smile of his. “Lemme guess. They want to introduce you to someone, right?”

Hanai scowls. “I don’t see how this is funny.”

“It’s totally funny. Dude, it’s hilarious.”

Only Yuu would hear _‘My boyfriend’s parents want to set him up with some random girl’_ and think _‘Holy shit, this is going to be awesome’_.  Hanai sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. Sometimes he wonders why he even makes the effort to try and understand whatever the hell goes on inside Yuu’s head. “Yeah. It’s a riot. Anyway, they want me to take her out to lunch on Sunday.”

Yuu, who’s restarted the game, pauses and turns around completely, so that he’s facing the foot of the bed and looking up at Hanai. “Can I come?” he asks. “I’ll hide in a bush or something. With a video camera. And tape you. It’ll be the most awkward date ever _—_ ”

“Not _ever._ ” That title is reserved for their own first date, which started with Hanai falling into a pond and ended with Yuu narrowly avoiding arson charges. “So, yeah. I’m hoping they’ll leave me alone for a while if I look like I’m making an effort. But… you’re sure you’re okay with this?”

Yuu absently thumbs at one of the joysticks on the controller. “I’m fine with it,” he says.

“Okay, then.” With anyone else, Hanai would be skeptical, but this is Yuu, and he’s hardly the type to lie about feeling hurt. “I just wanted you to know, I guess.”

“That’s so sweet.” Yuu grins, then turns back to the television and unpauses the game. “Have fun.”

 

 

The date is the opposite of fun, actually.

First, it’s raining. Despite a forecast of sunny, cloudless skies. Really, though, he should have expected that: over the years, Hanai has discovered that the entire universe simply enjoys fucking with him. From unlucky draws to constant jan-ken-pon losses, nothing ever goes his way. (In fact, soon after coming of age, the entire team had resolved never to bring him along to pachinko parlors, as his bad luck only seemed to spread to anyone and everyone around him.) And so when Hanai steps off the train and is quickly covered with a sheet of cold rain, he decides it’s definitely a bad sign.

Her name is Ise Mayumi, and he meets her just outside the station. She’s tall, tactfully made-up, with her light-brown hair swept over one shoulder. She looks the part of an intelligent, traditional beauty. She greets him with a soft smile and a slight bow, which he hastily returns.

She also comes bearing an umbrella. To Hanai’s surprise, she offers it to him as soon as they’ve left the safety of the station’s awning. “You’re taller,” she explains, “and there’s no sense in both of us getting wet.”

Well, it makes a lot of sense. And this is meant to appear as a date, even if Hanai has no intention of following up on it. So he unsheathes the umbrella and opens it over the both of their heads. Once they’re both situated underneath it, Ise-san gives him a nod, and they continue on their way toward the café the date is meant to take place at.

Despite the noise of the busy street they’re navigating, there’s stillness between them for a long time. After a few more moments of increasingly-awkward silence, Hanai figures that it’s up to him to move the conversation along.

“So—” he starts, and cringes when his voice wavers at the end of the word. “I’ve been told you just started teaching.” At her nod, Hanai continues, feeling somewhat bolstered. “Are you enjoying it so far?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, actually,” Ise-san says. She keeps her eyes ahead as they navigate the crowded street, careful to avoid bumping into anyone. “I wasn’t expecting to be able to start off my career so early, so I might have been a little unprepared for it.” She smiles now, perhaps at some private joke. “I’m learning quickly, though. What about you?”

“I’m in school in Tokyo. Business stuff, mostly.”

“That sounds interesting,” Ise-san says, sounding only vaguely attentive. Hanai can’t blame her; he’d be the first to admit it’s boring, and he’s the one who chose the major to begin with.

The date continues on, just like that. The conversation remains dry as dust, from their walk to the café, and throughout their actual meal. If their chat was a sport, Hanai decides it would be tennis. An endless set, the ball volleyed back and forth between them without much excitement. Or maybe it’s just a rundown; one that spans all nine innings and goes into overtime. Though Hanai keeps half of his mind on the conversation, the other half is too focused on game-calling to give a more detailed explanation. There must be some way to inform her that he’s not interested without being rude, or giving anything away.

In the end, though, the situation resolves itself. By the time they’ve finished their meal at the café, Hanai has ascertained that the both of them have absolutely no interest in each other, and never did to begin with. It’s more than likely that Ise Mayumi’s parents have attempted to set her up as well. Well, at least Hanai’s not going to be the only one disappointing his mother and father.

 

 

“How was she?”

Hanai puts his mom on speaker and drops his phone on the bed so he can towel off his hair. “She was nice,” he replies, careful to keep his tone neutral. Hanai’s mother must hear the unspoken _‘we’re completely and irrevocably incompatible’_ in his tone of voice, though, because she heaves a heavy sigh moments later.

“Not your kind of girl, is she?” Another soft, disappointed noise sounds from the other end of the line. “I thought you’d go for the quiet, intelligent type, too.”

Hanai makes a valiant effort to hold back a laugh, really, but it still comes out as an abrasive snort. Once upon a time he, too, had thought he was into the quiet, intelligent type. Yuu is obviously evidence to the contrary.

“What are you laughing at?”

“It’s, uh.” He flounders for an explanation. “Something I was just thinking about from earlier.”

“Right.” She sounds completely unconvinced, but whatever. “Maybe you just need to get to know each other?”

Hanai thinks his noncommittal _“hmm…”_ conveys his thoughts on that idea well enough.

“All right.” She still sounds disappointed, but now there’s a note of determination in her voice. “Well, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try again’, right? We were sort of anticipating this, to be honest.”

His parents were expecting his date to be a total failure? Either that speaks to their uncertainty about pairing him up with Ise Mayumi, or they really have no faith in him at all. Hanai has no idea what to say to that.

“I’ve set up another outing for you on the weekend.” His mother blatantly ignores his following groan, and continues. “Your father knows her parents from work. It’ll be fun, Azusa, I promise you.  And I think you both have a lot in common.”

Maybe they’ll both have _being gay_ in common? That would be terrific. But very unlikely. “I don’t think... I mean, do I _have to?_ ”

“Yes.” It’s practically a command: rigid, absolute, and unbreakable. “You do.”

 

 

Education must be contractually obligated to drain the life out of you, Hanai thinks. It was bad enough in high school, with baseball and studies and, later, the responsibilities of being a class representative, all stacked upon each other. College, if possible, makes it worse: he’s had to try and organize his schedule around Yuu’s so that they can see each other for more than five minutes a week. It makes him long for the simplicity of high school, where being together was as easy as riding his bike over and spending the night.

Sometimes it makes him think pretty crazy thoughts. It’s just— sometimes he just wants to give up the charade, say ‘fuck it’ and shout to the world that yes, he _is_ dating Tajima Yuuichirou, thank you very much, and he’d like to be able to spend a little time with him without it being such a goddamned secret.

It’s times like this, when he starts to feel like coming out would actually _solve_ problems instead of create them, that he calls Yuu up. Talking with him always gives Hanai a pretty good reminder of just how crazy an idea it is.

 “Azusa! What’s up?”

Hanai can hear distinct, familiar noises in the background: the _clink_ of a bat colliding with a fastball, the soft _thud_ that accompanies the successful catch of an outfield hit. His eyes fly to the whiteboard hanging at the other end of the room: maybe he’s gotten the schedule for this week wrong. “Are you at practice?” he asks. “Sorry, I can call back later.”

“No, it’s cool. We’re done, anyway.” He hears a slight ruffling; probably Yuu pocketing the phone as he goes to remove his shirt before heading to the showers. After a moment, he continues. “How was your date?”

“Horrible,” Hanai groans. He rolls over in his bed and glares up at the ceiling. “I think she was as bored as I was, though, so I guess the feeling was mutual.”

“See? I told you it wouldn’t be that bad!”

Hanai doesn’t know how Yuu interprets _‘it was horrible’_ as _‘it wasn’t that bad’_ , but again: no use trying to figure out what goes on in his head. “Bad news, though. My mom’s not giving up. She—”

“Hold on a sec.” There’s talking in the background, then more shuffling. After a moment: “Sorry. Had to take my undershirt off.”

“You’re making me feel overdressed. You’re almost naked and here I am, still in a shirt and jeans.”

“ _Almost_ naked?” Yuu cackles. “You underestimate me.”

Hanai rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, though he can’t help but smile at that. “Shut up. And go take a shower.”

“But you were saying something! Your mom still wants to set you up?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Maybe I should go along this time. You know, as moral support.”

Yes, because bringing along one of Japan’s most attractive, successful, and prolific baseball players to dinner wouldn’t damage his self-esteem at all. Nothing like having your fake-date fall in love with your fake-wingman. (According to poor Mizutani, this has happened to him quite a few times, with the wingman in question being Izumi or Hamada—or sometimes both.) Besides, Hanai’s pretty sure that Yuu’s idea of moral support consists of hot, semi-public sex in a bathroom stall while waiting on their orders.

All of Hanai’s doubts can be summarized in a single sentence, thankfully. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Or,” Yuu whispers conspiratorially, “is it a _good_ idea?”

“No, it’s definitely a bad one. Besides, you’re just offering to come along so that you can watch me crash and burn.” Yuu’s not cruel, but he does enjoy a good laugh.

“I’m not that mean!” Yuu sounds a bit wounded. “Okay, so maybe I _am_ hoping you’ll crash and burn, but what do you expect? You want me to root for the girl who’s trying to get with my—”

“Stop.” Hanai slaps a palm to his face. “Stop and think about where you are right now. The locker room, right? I’m sure they’d all love to hear about your _boyfriend_ , Yuu.”

In typical Tajima fashion, Yuu’s reply is all cheer. “Oh, they definitely would! They’ve all been wondering who this mysterious ‘Azusa’ is, anyway: they think I’ve got a secret lover or something.”  Which is actually totally true.

Yuu lowers his voice then, so that only Hanai can hear him. “You know, it’s a good thing you’ve got such a _girly_ _name_ —”

Hanai hangs up.

 

 

“Tarou and Tohru.”

These are the first words his date says to him. She’d spent the first four minutes checking him out in a completely unsubtle fashion, and it seems he’s passed whatever test she’d used to evaluate him, and deemed him worthy of conversation. Hanai blinks, slides off his messenger bag, and drops it into the chair across from her. “Excuse me?”

“I want to name our children Tarou and Tohru. It’s been my dream since I was a kid.”

“…oh.”

She has the decency to look embarrassed at that point, and manages a small bow that serves as both an apology and a greeting. “I’m really sorry. You don’t even know my name! I’m Tanizaki Tokiko. People tell me that I tend to move a little fast.”

No kidding. He returns the bow, albeit slightly awkwardly. Something tells him this date isn’t going to end well. Probably the fact that it hasn’t _started_ well.

“So. Hanai-san. Let’s start over.” She pauses, brushes a few stray strands of hair behind one ear and gives him a soft smile.

Then she says: “Does your family have a history of medical disorders or diseases?”

 

 

“Oh my God.” Hanai deposits his keys on the tiny counter in his crowded kitchenette and adjusts his phone so that he can hold it against his ear with one shoulder. “They didn’t tell me they were trying to set me up with a complete lunatic.”

“Was she really that bad?”

“She started talking about how great my genetic material would be for baby-making. That’s far beyond the realm of dating etiquette, I think. And you know what? That’s not even the worst part.”

It sounds like Yuu pulls the phone away from his face: it's slightly distant, but Hanai can still hear him laughing quite clearly. He seems to return the phone to its proper place seconds later. “What’s the worst part?” he asks.

“The worst part is that my parents thought we had a lot in common. I mean… does that mean they think _I’m_ completely crazy, too?”

“You’re crazy in a good way,” Yuu assures him.

“Thanks for that.”

“I mean, like,” and here Yuu sounds like he’s desperately trying to field a foul ball, “the kind of crazy that made you a good captain, you know? Always thinking about everything at once. And being—well, not _paranoid_ or anything, but… concerned? About everything?”

“Yeah, okay.” The beginnings of a headache are growing. As much as Hanai loves him, this is not an unusual occurrence when speaking with Yuu. “You can stop trying to grasp at straws. Anyway, as entertaining as this is for you, I’d rather avoid spending my weekends leading perfectly nice and sometimes crazy women on. This has got to end, and soon.”

Yuu’s gasp following that sentence is almost dramatic enough to sound comical. “You’re going to tell them? Your parents?”

Blinding fear suddenly surges through his chest and settles somewhere in his stomach, catching him off guard. His heart skips a beat, then another. “I… no. I’m just going to tell them that I’m perfectly capable of finding my own girlfriend. Or something.”

“Oh.” Yuu sighs, sounding equal parts bored and disappointed. “And here I’d thought you’d finally grown a pair and decided to tell them the truth. What was I thinking?”

“You must have been thinking,” Hanai mutters, growing rather irritated, “about how much you enjoy pushing my buttons. I already told you that that’s the last thing I want to do.”

“Well, sorry for following your thought to its logical conclusion.” And ‘logical conclusion’ is a phrase he’d never thought he’d hear from Yuu, but whatever. “What did you expect me to think?”

The headache has built from a slight pain to a steady throbbing. “You know what? Nevermind. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Geez, what the hell? Why are you so _bitchy_ lately?” Yuu huffs indignantly on the other end of the line. “You’re the one who’s running around going on dates with random chicks—I feel like I’m the only one who should be allowed to be pissed off.”

Okay, so _now_ Yuu has a problem with it? Hanai paces from one end of his small room to the other, barely restraining the growing urge to throw his phone against a wall. “You were the one who said you didn’t mind! And it’s not like I have a choice!”

“You _do_ have a choice. You’re just ignoring it because you want to take the easy way out. Which you’re definitely going to do right now, probably by hanging u—”

Yuu knows him far too well.

 

 

 “It didn’t work out?”

Hanai restrains a sigh. “No. She—we… didn’t really connect.” Understatement of the century.

“Really?” Hanai’s mother makes a soft _tsking_ noise. “That’s quite a shame. I really thought she was the one.”

“Oh.” Hanai is starting to wonder exactly what type of girls his parents think he’s into. Or what kind of person they think their son is, actually.

“Well, we had another outing planned, just in case. Trust me, you’ll like her. I’m positive this time.”

And you know what, Hanai thinks, what the hell. Third time's the cham, right?

“…that’s fine,” Hanai says. And then adds, because he still feels immensely guilty: “but this is the last time.”

 

 

No. This is absolutely impossible.

This can’t seriously be happening.

But it definitely is. His date is sitting there at a small outdoor table at the café he’d taken Ise Mayumi to. Hanai _knows_ it’s her _,_ because she’s wearing the designated red pullover his mother had claimed he’d be able to spot from a mile away.

So Hanai takes a deep breath, pulls back his chair, and drops into the seat opposite her. He forgoes formalities completely, just offers her a weak smile and says, “Shinooka. I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Shinooka looks up from the menu she’d been perusing, and all the color drains away from her face. “H-Ha—Hanai-kun?”

Their waitress stops at the table in that moment, and they both manage to stutter out some sort of beverage. She looks as though she’s about to ask them if they’re okay, but apparently decides against it, and then leaves them to their increasingly awkward silence instead.

“Let me guess.” The shock is quickly wearing off, now being replaced by something that feels like dread. Hanai drags one cold palm down his face and sighs.  “Your parents are trying to set you up?”

Shinooka’s cheeks flush slightly. Time has really been good to her, Hanai thinks: her hair is still kept manageably short, curling into her face and framing a round, delicate face that’s matured since he’d last seen her.

“Y-yes.” She shifts a bit in her chair; apparently, the shock is fading away for her as well. “I keep telling them that I—well, you know. They think it’s something like a phase.”

One very long and very involved phase. “How is Momoe, by the way?”

Shinooka seems to radiate warmth at the question, and Hanai can’t help but smile along, too. There’s something about the former team manager that always put the people around her in good spirits. (While it’s definitely the result of her cheerful personality, it also might also have something to do with her presence signifying that food was soon to follow, back in high school.) “Still coaching,” she answers. “We found an apartment late last year—I just have to finish up a few more things at school, and then I can move back to Saitama in a few months.”

The waitress swoops back in before Hanai can respond, swiftly depositing their drinks on the table before disappearing almost as quickly. There’s a few moments of silence following her departure, where the two of them both sample their tea. And then, of course, Shinooka turns the tables on him and asks: “How is Tajima-kun?”

Mention of the suspect nature of their relationship never fails to make Hanai turn completely red, even if it _was_ the worst-kept secret amongst the senior members of the baseball club. “It’s—I mean. I’m not...”

Shinooka has always been a good listener. She sits there patiently, hands folded across her lap, and doesn’t push Hanai to say anything for the full five minutes it takes him to find the right words.

“We’re kind of at… I mean, it’s this whole _‘dating’_ idea my parents have…”

Shinooka nods her understanding. “I’ve heard as much,” she says, taking a sip of her tea.

Hanai’s stomach executes a rather ungraceful backflip at her words. He ends up swallowing a mouthful of scalding tea just to keep from spitting it out all over the table. “You heard what? Where?”

She graces him with a subtle, skeptical quirk of the mouth that says, _‘you know exactly where.’_ Hanai, not for the first time, curses the frightening efficacy of the baseball team’s grapevine.

The best part about having gone to Nishiura? The relatively abundant amount of pro baseball players that had graduated from his year means that Hanai’s rarely ever had to pay to attend a game. He’s rolling in limited edition merchandise from a multitude of teams. He gets baseball news directly from the sources, instead of having it filtered through reporters and editors.

The worst part about having gone to Nishiura? That small, ten-person team that first year had been incredibly close. Very much like a second family. Which means that Hanai’s business is _everyone’s_ business. He knows exactly how that information spread through their small circle, too: Yuu told Mihashi, because he tells Mihashi everything, and Mihashi had most undoubtedly told Abe, who told it to Izumi over drinks, who probably mentioned it offhandedly to Mizutani, who’d likely revealed it to Shinooka and maybe Sakaeguchi, who, despite being a great friend and probably the most sociable member of the team, is also secretly the biggest fucking gossip on the planet. So there’s no doubt the rest of the original club knows about their relationship issues as well.

Hanai drops his head into both hands and unsuccessfully stifles a small moan. “That’s just fantastic.”

He gets a sympathetic smile in return. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Shinooka says. She stirs her tea absently with her serving spoon, and then a thought seems to strike her. “Unless Abe-kun gets involved, that is.” She tries, but fails, to suppress a nervous laugh. “Whatever is worrying Mihashi-kun usually draws his attention, after all.”

And something that’s bothering Yuu will definitely send Mihashi into a spiral of anxious concern, which in turn will bring Abe Takaya down upon all of them, like a shadowy harbinger of doom. It’s an absolutely horrific thought. Hanai really doesn’t need Abe poking around in his romantic life again: once had been more than enough.

He sighs. “I suppose that’s a decent incentive to fix things, right?”

“Right.” Shinooka beams at him, seemingly unaware of the terror she’s instilled in him. “I hope everything goes well! Now,” and here she leans in, voice lowered to an excited whisper, “did you hear that Mizutani-kun’s band is going to break up?”

Hanai settles back, feels the tension seep out of his shoulders, and lets Shinooka’s enthusiastic recap of the team’s current ongoings wash over him. If anything, the imminent threat of Abe’s wrath proves two things. One: this series of dating catastrophes has gone on long enough.

And two: he probably (definitely) owes Yuu an apology.

 

 

Fortunately, the second problem seems intent on solving itself. Hanai hears the door open a day later, and looks over to find Yuu with a six pack in each hand and an apologetic grin on his face.

“I came for the make-up sex,” he says. He deposits the beer on the tiny counter in Hanai’s kitchenette and then drops onto one of the mats surrounding the worn kotatsu in the adjoined living area.

Hanai opts to sit across from Yuu instead of next to him. “We have to make up before we can have make-up sex.”

“What?” Yuu’s eyes go wide. “I thought the point of make-up sex was to make up _during_ sex. It’s like killing two birds with one stone! And it’s been like a million years since we did it, so the timing is perfect.”

“That’s not even… where do you learn this stuff?” Hanai shakes his head. “But we should seriously talk. Yuu, I—”

“Wait a second. You look like you’re going to start getting all sentimental,” Yuu interrupts. “Which means I have to be just a little bit more drunk than this.”

At that, he stands from the cushion and heads back into the kitchen. As he attempts to extricate a can from one of the packs on the table, Hanai takes the time to appreciate Yuu from this angle: almost as slight as he was in high school, with form-fitting jeans and t-shirt concealing what Hanai knows to be lean, firm muscle. He feels a warm, stirring sensation at the pit of his stomach—okay, it really _has_ been too long—but forces himself to continue speaking. As enthusiastic as Yuu seems about making up during sex, Hanai’s never really been as good at multitasking as he is.

He clears his throat, takes the beer that’s offered to him, and struggles to keep his thoughts on the right track. “You should call before you come over, you know. What if I had a guest?”

“Well, whenever we talk on the phone, you seem to hang up on me.”

Yuu doesn’t even sound accusatory when he says this, but it definitely makes Hanai feel pretty damned guilty. After all, it’s been true, as of late.

Even so: “You said my name was girly.” While he’s probably (definitely) in the wrong, Hanai still can’t let that part go. It’s an affront to his manhood. “I think that’s grounds to hang up.”

He takes a sip of his beer to finish that sentence off, and when he’s lowered the can from his face, Yuu is suddenly only inches away from him. Several things happen at once: Hanai jerks back, smacks his elbow on the kotatsu, drops his beer, and falls flat on his back. Yuu moves like an equal and opposite reaction: he slides forward, straddles Hanai, catches the falling beer, and places it safely in the center of the table.

“Are you absolutely, positively, _precisely_ sure,” Yuu asks, his voice pitched low, “that we can’t do both?”

Hanai means to say no, they should sort out their issues first. He really does. But then Yuu shifts _just right_ and the friction between them leaves Hanai speechless for a moment. And then Yuu leans down, and Hanai props himself up and—ow, okay, they haven’t gotten any better at coordinating foreplay, apparently, because their foreheads knock together with a solid _smack_ before their lips even meet.

“Owww…” Yuu leans back again, and tears begin to bead at the corners of his eyes. “That was mean, Azusa!”

“It’s not like I did it on purpose,” Hanai grumbles. He sits up, more carefully this time, and scoots back and out from under Yuu. “ _Now_ can we talk?”

Yuu gives him what must be the most piteous look in his arsenal.

Hanai inhales, holds his breath and counts to ten, and then exhales slowly. Okay, new tactic. “You said you could multitask, right? But if we were to make up and have sex at the same time, you’d only be putting fifty percent of your effort into either one, right?”

Yuu looks offended at the very suggestion. “I put one-hundred percent into _everything.”_

Hanai slaps a palm against his face. “You can’t put two hund—okay, nevermind.” He takes another deep breath, and switches tactics yet again. After four years with Yuu, he’s no stranger to compromise. “How’s this: if we sleep together now, then you sure as hell better put one-hundred percent into talking afterward.”

 “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

And with that, Yuu grasps Hanai’s wrist and pulls him up off the floor. They stumble over textbooks and loose papers to the bed, the one luxury in the tiny apartment that Hanai owns (courtesy of Yuu).

And, you know what? Why the hell not? Maybe a discussion will come easier once sex is off their minds, anyway. Okay, well, off Hanai’s mind. He doubts it can ever really be off of Yuu’s mind: it’ll just be buried under more pressing concerns, like baseball or food. Or talking, hopefully.

While Yuu pulls his shirt over his head, Hanai reaches blindly to his nightstand. He manages to knock his glasses, and then his alarm clock, off of the small table before finally grabbing hold of the handle to its single drawer. Yuu, who’s now working his belt off with record speed, spares a few seconds to lean over Hanai and retrieve half a dozen condoms, the foil crinkling loudly in his hand. The pants come off fully before he doubles back to grab the tube of lube from the same drawer.

His hands slip under Hanai’s shirt, skate up his abdominal muscles, and Hanai realizes that he’s going to have to deal with his own clothes, since Yuu is clearly occupied. He’s kissing his way down Hanai’s ribs, and when Hanai lifts his hips to wiggle his jeans off, Yuu does something with his teeth and that sensitive juncture of flesh along his pelvic bone that has Hanai seeing stars.

Not to be outdone, though, Hanai slicks up his palm with the lubricant, and wastes no time in taking Yuu’s erection in hand. Yuu rewards him with a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a moan and somehow still kind of sexy.

Over time, Hanai has realized that Yuu approaches sex sort of like he approaches baseball: impossibly coordinated, with almost preternatural skill. It’s the only way to explain how he manages to open up a condom wrapper with one hand, prep himself with the other, and give surprisingly coherent and rather enthusiastic encouragement, all while at the receiving end of what Hanai is sure is a pretty awesome handjob.

Hanai rolls the condom onto himself, and quickly grabs hold of Yuu’s hips as the smaller man nearly drops on top of him. “C-careful.  Don’t you have a g-game in a few days?”

“Don’t worry: I’ll try not to break anything.” Yuu’s level tone would sound sincere to anyone else, but Hanai knows enough to realize when he’s being humored. And then he lowers himself down onto Hanai, and it’s sort of hard to form conscious thoughts after that.

 

 

Afterward, Hanai figures that he’s the one at fault, so he’s probably the one burdened with initiating the Talk.

“I think I should be the one apologizing. None of this has been fair to you, at all. I don’t know how I got the crazy idea that it somehow was.”

There’s silence for so long that Hanai nearly believes that Yuu has fallen asleep. But then:

“I was trying not to care.”

Apropos of nothing, the words sound strangely melancholic. Hanai lets his head loll to one side, to see Yuu staring up at the cracked and weathered ceiling. “What?”

Yuu wiggles around on the sheets, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation, but apparently remembering his promise to put effort into talking. “You were right: I did say that I didn’t have a problem with it. But, I mean… how could I _not_ have a problem with it? We’ve been dating since high school; it’d be weird if I weren’t possessive, don’t you think?”

Hanai blinks at the admission. “Then why’d you say it was okay? You know I wouldn’t have gone ahead with it if you didn’t want me to.”

“Because I thought a date or two would get your parents off your back, too,” Yuu mumbles. He’s tossed an arm over his face and his voice is slightly muffled because of it, but Hanai can still make out what he’s saying.

Hanai shrugs in response, though Yuu can’t see it. “Yeah, you and me both. But they seem pretty determined now.”

Yuu rolls over and pokes him in the stomach. “You should just tell them,” he says. “Trust me: things get so much easier when you do.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve got so many siblings your parents probably wouldn’t mind if you didn’t have kids. And they’re pretty laid back, on top of all of that.” The Tajima family had taken everything in stride, even going so far as to invite Hanai over every New Year’s without fail. “But my parents…”

“Azusa, stop worrying. It’s not like they’re going to disown you.”

“They might actually do that, maybe.”

“C’mon.” Yuu rolls out of bed, which looks exactly how it sounds: he simply turns over and falls off the bed, landing out of sight with a loud _thump_. Seconds later he emerges into view with his pants already on and in the process of pulling his shirt over his head. “We’ll go right now. I’ll be there for moral support.”

Hanai takes, oh, three seconds to immediately shoot down the idea. “Well, I do like moral support. But not your version of it.” It still amounts to hot, semi-public sex, but this time in the bathroom at his own house. Which is all kinds of wrong.

Yuu looks slightly wounded. “What’s wrong with my version of moral support?”

“What? Everything’s wrong with it! Remember when I went for that internship thing back in March?”

Yuu certainly remembers, if his absent smile is anything to go by. There’s nothing quite like risking job opportunities by getting blown under the conference table before an interview.

“Anyway, can we not talk about this right now, again?” Hanai stands, and begins to put his clothes back on as well (though much less fluidly then Yuu). “This whole dating fiasco is over. I’ll make sure of it. But let’s just leave at ‘no, we will not tell my parents today’. I’m not ready yet, okay?”

Yuu scowls, and his bright eyes go dark. “Yeah, four years and you’re still hiding this. Nice to know I mean something to you.”

Four years out of high school, and the only thing Yuu had learned there that’s actually stuck is sarcasm. Hanai has Izumi to thank for that.

They glare at each other for a bit, both refusing to bend.

It takes a few moments, but Yuu is the first to back down, which is unusual enough for Hanai’s anger to dissipate almost instantly. Yuu lets his shoulders drop, relaxes his clenched fists, and falls back against the mattress again. “Sorry,” he says, his voice a sullen undertone. “I didn’t mean that.”

With Yuu’s mouth set in a plaintive frown, he looks uncharacteristically vulnerable. The sight evokes an almost physical pain in Hanai's chest. He’d do almost anything to make that pain go away, and make Yuu smile instead.

Almost anything.

“It’s not like I’m never going to tell them,” he says. “It’s just… I’m waiting for the right time, is all.”

Hanai can almost see Yuu forming the words _‘no time like the present’_ in his mind, but evidently he thinks better of it. “Okay,” is what he says instead, sounding marginally less dejected. “When you’re ready, I guess.”

“Thank you.” Hanai breathes the words like a sigh of relief. He props himself up on one elbow and leans over Yuu to place a chaste kiss on his forehead. “And sorry. Again.”

True to form, the great Tajima Yuuichirou doesn’t stay depressed for long. He adopts a grin almost instantaneously, and begins to wriggle out of the shirt he’d put on only moments earlier. “Are we going to keep apologizing,” he says, “or are we going to get back to round two?”

Leave it to Yuu to be so straight-to-the-point. The fact that he’s already got his pants off again certainly helps.

An hour later, while Yuu snores against his shoulder, Hanai reflects upon the fact that they haven’t really solved anything. Unable to sleep, he wonders: does it still count as (admittedly enjoyable) make-up sex if the make-up itself was perfunctory, at best?

 

 

Yuu bats decently in the next game. All in all, it’s fairly average, which means it’s nowhere near Yuu’s best.

Abe sends Hanai a message, which is entirely composed of one terse subject line: ‘ _Get your shit together.’_

Hanai does not grace him with a response.

 

 

“It’s not like I’m trying to be an awful person.” Hanai throw his hands into the air as he says this, his fingers clenching at nothing, or perhaps Abe’s neck. “But nobody’s giving me much of a choice, here.”

“Mmhmm.” Suyama taps his pen against his lips, seemingly deep in thought, and then asks, “What’s an eleven-letter English word for ‘threshold of incompetence’?”

“Is that some kind of thinly-veiled insult?” Hanai settles back in his overstuffed armchair and frowns. “And are you doing the Times crossword?”

“Our department has a competition once a month,” Suyama explains. “Whoever wins gets first pick of clinical spots until the next month.” He finally looks up at Hanai. “I need to win,” he says, straightforward as ever. “I want to be able to sleep in. Badly.”

Okay, well. Hanai can sympathize with that. And English is his strong point, after all. He accepts the clipboard and pen from Suyama and eyes the crossword, appraising. “You owe me one.”

Suyama sits back in his own armchair and crosses his feet upon the desk in between them. He gives Hanai an easy grin. “I’m listening to you, aren’t I? I think that counts as a debt repaid.”

Hanai snorts. “You’re writing this all off as ‘patient care’ hours. _I_ think you’re still coming out on top.”

He takes a minute to look up from the crossword and at their surroundings. The walls are papered in a dark wine color, golden _fleur de lis_ patterned across it from floor to ceiling. The carpet is rich and plush, and the furniture is tasteful, elegant, expensive. “This isn’t your office, is it?”

“I don’t even have an office,” Suyama says. “No, this is my faculty advisor’s place.” He produces a key from his pocket, and spins it around lazily on one index finger. “He asked me to water his plants while he went overseas for some conference. Figured I might as well take advantage of it.”

That admission warrants a mock version of Hanai’s most disapproving Captain Look. He can only manage to hold it for a few seconds before they both start laughing. Through gradually quieting chuckles, he says: “I never would have expected this from our stoic shortstop.”

“And I never would have expected you to chicken out when it comes to Tajima.” Suyama shrugs, nonchalant. “I guess we’re both full of surprises.”

Ouch. The sudden change in topic hits Hanai where it hurts: his heavily-buried but always-relevant inferiority complex. Trust Suyama to know exactly where to apply pressure.

The two of them occasionally engage in this mutually beneficial exchange: Hanai vents, Suyama listens (and credits it as work experience), and they both come out better for it. It’s an easy arrangement; sometimes easy enough for Hanai to forget that Suyama’s studying psychology, and that their familiarity means that he pulls no punches when it comes to dispensing advice.

There aren’t many people Hanai can talk to about his relationship with Yuu, and the number of people he’d _want_ to talk to about it is even smaller. Normally, Hanai would simply complain about work, or some irritating thing Yuu did, or anxieties about school, but Shinooka had been right: the cat had undoubtedly escaped from the bag the second Yuu must have spoken to Mihashi, and the whole team definitely knows now. That much had been proven the moment he’d entered the room, when Suyama had greeted him with, “How was your date?”

Now, though, he can’t keep his irritation from growing. “I’m not chickening out,” he snaps. “And nobody gets to judge me for not wanting to come out to my parents. It’s not like it’s easy.”

“It’s not,” Suyama agrees smoothly, “and I agree that you should do it when you feel like you’re ready. But you’re avoiding responsibility by playing the field. You can’t have it both ways, Hanai. What your parents want and what Tajima wants are at odds, and neither of them will be satisfied by half-assed attempts to please both sides.”

It’s the truth that he’d known all along, but never allowed himself to acknowledge. Having it spoken aloud is incredibly frustrating, but it’s probably exactly what Hanai needs to hear right now. He runs a hand through his hair and slouches lower into his chair. “So what do you suggest I do?”

Suyama looks at him pointedly, until Hanai realizes that he’s waiting for him to continue with the crossword. With a sigh, he looks back at the clipboard and begins to read through the clues again.

“Ultimately,” Suyama eventually continues, “you have to figure out what option makes _you_ happy, and then work toward that goal. You’re going to have to make some tough choices. I don’t envy you.”

“Thanks,” Hanai says dryly.

“I’m just trying to say that you can’t pull off this balancing act forever. Not without hurting yourself, and the people around you.”

More aggravating, frustrating truths. “You’re right,” Hanai admits, suddenly feeling quite weary. “I think I’m even throwing off Yuu’s game.”

Suyama drops his chin into one hand and pins Hanai with an accommodating expression. “As much as Abe would probably like to convince you otherwise,” he says, patiently, “Tajima’s batting is not your responsibility. I know it’s hard to believe sometimes, but Tajima is actually an adult, the same as us. And that means he’s accountable for the actions he takes and the decisions he makes. If Tajima’s game is off, then it’s because Tajima needs to focus.”

It’s a sensible conclusion, but Hanai’s sense of self-loathing has never given up a fight that easily. “I still feel like it’s my fault,” he says.

Suyama shrugs again. “Well, nothing I can do about that. Are you done with the crossword?’

“Everything but that first one.” Coupled with the fact that Suyama had already filled out several answers, the puzzle had actually been fairly easy. Hanai supposes the difficulty of the competition is supposed to come from the puzzle being full of English idioms.

Which is probably why fourteen-down seems to escape him. ‘ _Threshold for incompetence_.’ The universe is fucking with him again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Suyama says, apparently picking up on Hanai’s cosmic suffering. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have the most complete crossword, anyway. Thanks, Hanai.”

“No problem.” Hanai stands, stretches, and hands the clipboard back to Suyama. A thought occurs to him while he’s gathering his jacket and his bag.  “Who told you about the dating thing, anyway?”

Suyama, who’s looking over the crossword, shakes his head. “Doctor-patient confidentiality. That information is off-limits.”

“What? You don’t—that’s _gossip,_ not actual therapy. And you’re not even a doctor yet.”

“True.” Said not-doctor crosses his feet up on the desk again and says, “But even so. I don’t reveal my sources.”

And that’s the most Hanai can get out of him on the subject.

 

 

Fact: Yuu is the only one who would pound on Hanai’s door like it’s some flat, immobile punching bag. But this knowledge is in direct conflict with the fact that Yuu is not supposed to be knocking on the door as a.) he has a key, and b.) it’s five in the morning.

Hanai thrusts open the door, ready to complain about visits at odd hours of the night, but Yuu barges in, slipping underneath the arm Hanai’s using to prop open the door and almost dancing into the tiny apartment.

“Guess what? Guess what?” He hops from one foot to the other, the picture of youthful exuberance. It makes Hanai even more tired, if possible. “You’re not going to believe it!”

“ _Y_ —”

Yuu, with his amazing, disproportionate-to-his-size strength, actually manages to pick him up and spin him around. “The coaches said I can get my own apartment!”

Yuu’s been on the team for four years, two of which were spent as starter on the minor league squad. Apparently he’s proven his worth to the administration, and that means being allowed to move out of the team’s dorms. Which is really about time, Hanai thinks.

“That is… awesome.”  For lack of a better word. It’s five in the morning: he can be forgiven if more descriptive adjectives escape him at the moment. Still, he can’t help but mirror Yuu’s impossibly wide smile, and even his drowsiness begins to fade. “Where are you going to get it?”

“Somewhere close to the field, I guess.” Yuu shrugs. “Can’t pick until we see it, right?”

 _We_. The thought fills Hanai with a sense of warmth that tickles at his stomach, burns in his chest, and rises to color his cheeks. “It might be expensive near the Dome. Can we even afford that?”

Yuu gives him an incredulous look. “It’s not like I have anything else to spend my money on.”

“You’re not paying for the whole thing.” The thought alone makes Hanai cringe inwardly. He’d always known that there would be a significant disparity in income between the two of them, but it’s never really been an issue until now. “I’d feel obligated to be, like, I don’t know… a live-in maid. Do housework and cook just to earn my keep.”

“I’d be okay with that.” Yuu graces him with a salacious grin. “As long as you do everything naked.”

Hanai shakes his head, laughing. “Keep dreaming. In any case, we haven’t even gone looking for one yet. We can take care of all of that stuff later. Right now…” and at that, he hooks his thumbs into the belt loops of Yuu’s jeans and pulls him close, “we’re going to celebrate.”

‘Celebration’ eventually has the elderly lady who lives next door threatening to call Hanai’s landlord with noise complaints. So Yuu leaves while it’s still early, with the promise that _yes_ , they will go looking at apartments together, _no_ , he will not impulse buy the next empty house he comes across on the way back to the dorms.

Yuu has hardly left the apartment building’s veranda when the aforementioned elderly woman sticks her head out of her door to give Hanai a dirty look. He smiles brightly and waves back, perfectly serene, because it’s hard to feel apologetic about much of anything when you’d just had the best sex of your life.

 

 

They stand on the fourth floor of a beautiful condominium that purports to be the leader in modern architecture and, most importantly, privacy. The walls are supposedly soundproofed, which is good because Hanai’s neighbors are probably about to get him thrown out of his room, and he’s not sure how much longer ‘squirrels living in the walls’ will hold up as an excuse for the landlord. Or if it ever did.

Their tour guide walks a respectful distance in front of them, far enough to allow them a private conversation, but close enough for them to direct a question to her when necessary. As they make their way down the pristinely-decorated corridor, Hanai flips through the brochure, taking note of the variety of floor layouts that the complex possesses. “Yuu, this floor is all family apartments.”

“Well, you were talking about kids, so…”

Hanai barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. “My _parents_ were talking about kids. Which we can’t have. Remember our life sciences class?”

Yuu grimaces, as if the mere mention of school is giving him a headache. (It probably is.) “How could I forget? But, seriously, if you ever feel the need to have little Azusas running around, we’d definitely want more room, right?”

“Even just adopting would be hard enough, you know.”

Yuu waves a dismissive hand at him. They turn another corner after their guide and begin down the next hallway. “My brothers and sisters have enough kids already: I’m sure they wouldn’t mind giving one up.”

The craziest thing about that suggestion is that it doesn’t surprise Hanai at all. “And they’re just going to give you one of their children,” he asks, so deadpan that it’s more of a statement then a question.

“Yeah, dude—”

And then Yuu stops. Hanai faces forward, and sees that their tour guide has stopped as well, but not because they’ve arrived at the next preview apartment. They’ve run into another tour.

Hanai’s parents stand across the hall, their expressions caught somewhere between stunned and confused.

“Oh,” is the only thing Hanai can think to say.

Yuu, however, is never at a loss for words. “Hi, Azusa’s parents!” he calls out, waving enthusiastically. “You’re looking for apartments, too?”

 

 

This is the point, Hanai thinks, that Suyama had alluded to. Where the flow of the game can head one way or the other.  He has momentum; perpetually heading in a direction that plays it safe. There are one million and one possible excuses he can pull off the top of his head, and it’s more than likely that his parents will be willing to accept a good number of them. But Yuu will be forever relegated to the shadows of Hanai’s life, and their relationship will suffer for it.

Or he could turn the whole game around. Stop keeping secrets from the people loves about the person he loves. It’s a far more frightening path, with a myriad of disastrous possibilities and only a few positive outcomes. But the reward is far, far greater.

There’s a moment, here, that seems to stretch out into eternity; where time seems to fold over itself to allow Hanai to come to a decision. And when he does, he instantly knows that he will have no regrets. He could visit this moment over and over again, and would choose this path every time.

You can’t obtain success without taking risks. Baseball has taught him that much, at least.

 

 

Really, it's a testament to Hanai's horrible luck that his parents would be looking for a new home the very same day, in the very same complex. Universe: One million and one. Hanai Azusa: Zero. The tour guides, sensing tension, have wisely disappeared, which leaves them to sit alone in the model apartment’s delicately furnished living room.

“So…” Hanai’s mother begins, “you’re… gay.”

Hanai shifts, feeling only slightly (read: pretty fucking) uncomfortable. “Yes?”

“...with Tajima Yuuichirou?”

That comes from his father. Yuu chooses this moment to shout from the bathroom, where he’s currently inspecting the décor. “Azusa, you’ve got to check this out! The bath doubles as a Jacuzzi!”

All three Hanais cringe and try very, very hard to ignore Yuu’s cheerful cries of _‘Jacuzzi sex!’_

“Yes.” Hanai finally answers the question. “Since the last year of high school.”

Hanai’s mother  turns to her husband slowly, her eyes open so wide that her eyebrows are hidden in her hair. “Our son is gay with Tajima Yuuichirou.”

“Since high school…” Hanai’s father repeats.

“Look.” Talking has never been so difficult for Hanai. Where the hell is Yuu with his proffered moral support? “I know I should have told you, but—”

The front door opens, abruptly cutting off whatever apology Hanai might have offered. An upbeat voice emerges from the doorway, slicing through the painfully awkward silence like a hot knife through butter. “And this is one of our premiere family uni—oh.”

The tour guide who’s just entered pauses midstep and in the middle of her own sentence. The family behind her, fully expecting her to keep moving, tumbles into each other. A brief human simulation of a six-car pileup occurs, and it takes a few moments for the group to sort themselves out.

There’s a woman of about forty, a man of the same age, and what appears to be their three children: an eldest daughter, a middle son, and the youngest girl clutching at her mother’s skirt. The family stares at the occupants of the room, as if they’re the ones who have suddenly stumbled into the conversation.

As if to showcase his awful timing yet again, Yuu pops his head into the living room, all smiles and looking as though his birthday’s come early. “Azusa! Azusa! This kitchen is _huge_! You could fit six refrigerators in here or something…” He trails off when he notices the small crowd of people now in the living room.

The eldest woman, who Hanai presumes is the wife and mother, suddenly gives a loud gasp. “Is that… _Tajima Yuuichirou?_ From the Giants?”

Hanai shoots said Giants player a glare. It’s not really Yuu’s fault the situation is rapidly deteriorating, but Hanai needs a scapegoat and his appearance isn’t making it any better. Yuu seems to understand that, because he sticks his tongue out at Hanai before retreating out of sight to the other room.

“No,” Hanai turns his attention back to the front and answers the wife’s question with a transparent lie. “That was… someone else.”

“Ah…” The tour guide looks conflicted about whether she should continue or not. Apparently, she decides on the former, because seconds later she clears her throat and begins to speak again. “So this is one of our deluxe family suites, with—”

“I’m sorry,” Hanai says, entirely unapologetic, “could you give us a little privacy?”

“I swear that was Tajima Yuuichirou!” The woman’s children nod their agreement.

“Gay…” Hanai’s mother whispers, still in shock.

“ Azusa!” Yuu calls from the bedroom. “I think we’re going to have to find another complex. There’s ants _everywhere._ ”

“You have ants?” The older man turns to the guide and gives her accusing glare. “What kind of establishment are you running?”

“I’d really appreciate it if we could talk in private,” Hanai suggests to his parents, who still seem frozen in five-minutes-ago land. “We should—”

“I can deal with ants if Tajima-sama’s here.” The eldest daughter has developed an intense blush all across her face and down her neck. She quiets a shy giggle behind one hand and edges a bit closer to the door of the bedroom. Yuu sticks his head out again (because apparently Hanai’s non-verbal warning wasn’t nearly enough to keep him away), and asks:

“Did someone call me Tajima-sama?” The teenaged girl nods vigorously, and Tajima thrusts a fist into the air. “That’s awesome!”

“Sir,” begins the poor guide, who’s shuffling from one foot to the other, uncomfortably, “I can assure you that all of our units are maintained superbly. If there are any insects in here, they may have been the result of recent tours that our staff hasn’t had the chance to clean up yet.” She gives Hanai and his parents openly suspicious glances.

Hanai’s mother snaps out of her fugue just in time to look appropriately insulted. “Well, _we_ certainly didn’t bring any in here!”

Hanai takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and attempts to center himself, to calm his rising nerves. He’s dealt with worse situations than this. Being the captain of a _normal_ baseball team would have been hard enough; being the captain on a team with Abe and his obsessiveness, Mihashi with his rampant insecurities, Yuu with his _everything_ , and every other bizarre idiosyncratic personality in the club meant he’d had to develop the patience of a saint. It’d taken him a while to get used to it, but by the time graduation had come around, being a captain had become second nature to him.

But now? Now he’s approaching critical mass, and he blames his parents and this random family and even Yuu, but more than all of that he knows that it’s really his fault, because he could have avoided this catastrophe if he’d just worked up the courage to tell them _before_ , but now everything’s going to shit, and they’re risking the secrecy of their relationship (and Yuu’s career along with it), all because he didn’t have the balls to tell his parents the truth, and—and—

A light touch to his shoulder jerks him out of his own head and into reality, where his mother, the tour guide, and the husband are arguing about insects, his own father’s still frozen in shock, and the wife and her children are giggling excitedly and shooting admiring looks over at Yuu. Yuu, who’s standing beside him, hand on his shoulder, with a concerned look on his face.

“Azusa,” Yuu asks, voice just quiet enough for only him to hear, “are you okay?”

Hanai forces a reply out through gritted teeth. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay? Don’t I look okay?”

Yuu gives him a skeptical, if worried, glance. “I think you’re actually tearing your hair out. I always thought that was just a saying, too.”

“No, I just…” Hanai trails off. Watches the complete meltdown around him that seems to mirror the total collapse of his own thoughts. Stands, smiles brightly at Yuu, and says: “I think I’m just going to go.”

What follows is a bit of a blank. He’s already in the lobby when he realizes that this is perhaps the worst reaction to the situation he could possibly have had. Halfway back to his apartment when the shock, or whatever it is, begins to fade away, and the numbness makes way for continuous internal self-loathing. He lays on his bed, face buried into his pillows, and unsuccessfully tries to convince himself that he’ll have all the answers tomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t.

 

 

School doesn’t take his mind off of anything. Neither does his part-time job. He spends the day there shelving books in incorrect spots, turning yesterday’s catastrophe over and over in his head. Thinking about what he could have done to make things _not_ crazy, face burning with shame whenever he remembers his… was that a nervous breakdown? Or just a normal reaction to intense stress? Hanai is not too keen on evaluating it (though Suyama certainly would be), but the scene keeps rewinding and replaying in his head throughout the day.

He finishes placing the books and leaves the library to find the streets a veritable flood, the rain only adding to his dismal mood. By the time he’s back in his apartment, he’s soaked, pissed, and ready to collapse in his bed and take a million year nap, wet clothes be damned.

This proves to be impossible, because Yuu is already in his room when he gets there.

“You can’t walk out of your own house,” Yuu says quickly, as if Hanai is about to do just that. “So now we have to sit and talk _again_ because I’m pretty sure we haven’t covered all the bases yet.”

Baseball idioms. On any other occasion, Hanai would laugh, but now is obviously not an appropriate time. He drops his bag on the kotatsu, and falls solidly on the bed between Yuu and his assortment of pillows. “Sounds good to me.”

Even with that said, what follows is a long period of silence between them. Hanai chances a glance toward Yuu: he looks uncharacteristically pensive for a situation that doesn’t involve baseball . And then, quite surprisingly, he’s the one that says: “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Hanai stares at him, astonished. “You… you’re the last person who should feel sorry about anything. It wasn’t your fault to begin with.”

“It wasn’t,” Yuu agrees and then, being as blunt as he always is, he adds, “But I’m still sorry. I broke my promise: I should have been there right next to you while you told them, like I said I would. But,”—here it comes— “you shouldn’t have walked out on all of us.”

Hanai drops his head back against the headboard and throws an arm over his eyes. “I know, okay? In hindsight, there are a lot of things I shouldn’t have done.” The very first of which being agreeing to any of those dates to begin with. Despite his best efforts, there’s a stinging at his eyes that warns him that he’s getting terribly close to unacceptably emotional territory. “I don’t feel bad about telling them. I just… I handled that terribly, didn’t I? I don’t know how you put up with me, sometimes,” he mumbles.

Yuu shrugs, linking his hands behind his head during the motion. He falls backward onto the bed so that he’s lying next to Hanai, and seems to focus on some point far beyond the ceiling. “I knew you were high maintenance when we started this thing,” he says. “That didn’t stop me then, and it won’t scare me off now.”

It’s a strangely reassuring statement, even if some small part of Hanai objects to being called high maintenance. It’s also a little frightening, because Hanai already knows that Yuu will endanger his own career without thought, will stray farther from home than he’s ever been, to stay with him. And it’s beyond unfair if Hanai is a shitty boyfriend, in the face of all of Yuu’s sacrifices.

“Sorry.” It feels like the millionth time Hanai’s said it this week alone. He means it more every time, but in turn, it seems to lose more of its meaning each time. He supposes that’s the nature of apologies: if you have to use them over and over again, then it probably means that you didn’t learn anything from the last time you apologized.

Yuu seems to read his mind. “We both keep saying sorry. Maybe we should just stop doing things we’ll feel sorry for later on.”

Hanai gives a weak laugh. His chest feels hollow; his stomach, cold. “I wish. I don’t think that’s possible for me.”

“Hey!” Yuu pokes him in his stomach, and then rolls onto his side to face him. “What happened to Nishiura’s fearless captain? We made impossible goals possible back in high school. I don’t know why you think we can’t do it now.”

He’s got a point. There’s a big difference between ‘national conquest’ and ‘I will never fuck up again, ever’, though.

Hanai rolls onto his own side, and takes one of Yuu’s hands. It’s warm, like always. He thinks of risks and successes, of humid summers and hard-won victories, and then thinks: hell, it can’t hurt to unify their goals. It’s worked before, and it will work again.

“I can’t promise that I won’t ever do stupid things that’ll make me feel sorry. But I _can_ promise that I’ll try to be better.” He breathes in, out, rethinks his words. “I _will_ be better. You know that I’m capable of that.”

“I do.” Yuu grins. “You’re pretty awesome, after all.” He lets loose an appreciative whistle. “Third year, I was actually a little worried about keeping my cleanup spot. You came a long way from our first year.”

Hanai is still terrible at receiving compliments, which means his whole face goes red at that. Yuu laughs at this, loud and hard, but quiets almost instantly several seconds later. And then he says: “Me, too. I know I’ve messed up, sometimes. But I’ll be better, too.  You can count on it.”

There’s a frightening intensity to his voice and in his expression, the kind that Yuu usually reserves for baseball alone. Hanai doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. Instead he closes the gap between him and captures Yuu’s mouth in a kiss that he hopes conveys everything he can’t put into words. _You’re amazing. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I’m an idiot for keeping that hidden away for so long. Forgive me?_

Yuu’s answer, which is to sidle closer to him and deepen the kiss, is a most emphatic ‘yes’.

And then, of course, Hanai stumbles upon a rather boner-killing thought.

“Oh, God. My parents.”

Yuu winces in sympathy. “We should talk to them sooner and not later, I think.”

Hanai rolls off of him and groans. He presses the heels of both palms against his eyes and prays that his parents haven’t removed his name from the family registry yet. “How pissed were they?”

“They were kind of confused.” He hears Yuu stand, and then several padded steps across the tatami flooring, followed by the sound of the mini fridge being opened. “I mean, so was I, but they were _really_ confused. So was that other family, come to think of it. But they weren’t pissed.”

They were probably too shocked to be angry at that particular moment. Who knows how they’re feeling now? Hanai groans again, and then flinches as something cold is pressed to the side of his forehead. He uncovers his face and opens his eyes to see Yuu smiling down on him, with a bottle of water in his hand.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says. “Now you have to go get your shoes back on, or we’re gonna be late.”

 

 

Yuu remains resolute in his decision not to tell Hanai what they’ll be late _for_. He whistles the whole way there, though, even as the rain continues to pour down on them. Hanai had finally found his umbrella underneath his bed, and now the two of them navigate through crowds of harried businessmen and students, on their way to some unknown location.

Hanai experiences a strong feeling of déjà vu: it’s almost like his date with Ise Mayumi, except he doesn’t feel nearly as awkward sharing an umbrella with Yuu. It might be because everyone around them is in too much of a hurry to escape the rain to notice them, but Hanai finds that he can’t bring himself to give a damn if anyone sees them like this. Right now, the world has reduced itself to the two of them, elbows brushing against each other as they squeeze together under the umbrella.

And also, his mother. Who’s standing outside of the lobby of the building they finally stop at, with a hesitant smile on her face.

Hanai can’t decide whether to feel gratified or terrified. “You got my mom to meet with us?”

“I got her to look at apartments with us.” Yuu shrugs both shoulders and grins up at him. “Let’s be honest: neither of us know what the hell we’re supposed to be looking for.”

That’s probably true, but still ignores the main point Hanai had been trying to make. His mother is here: smiling, not crying her eyes out or yelling at him, but actually _waving them over._ He’d kiss Yuu then and there, but he’s pretty sure that would be pushing his luck.

He settles for brushing his fingers against the back of Yuu’s hand, instead. “Thanks.”

Yuu responds by leaning against him, which makes it a bit difficult to walk, but has the advantage of forming a warm line of heat down Hanai’s side.

They finally step under the awning that his mother is waiting underneath, and Hanai finds himself at a loss for words. He works his throat for a few moments, trying to form a greeting, or an apology, _something._ But all that comes out is an awkward, Mihashi-esque, “H-hello.”

To Hanai’s eternal surprise, his mom bursts out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she says at his blank stare, “but you looked so scared. Like you were approaching your funeral, not your mother.”

The tension drains away from Hanai almost instantly, and he feels his whole body relax from a nervous rigidity he hadn’t even noticed he’d adopted. “It’s not like I didn’t have a reason to be,” he says. “I was sort of expecting to be disowned, not laughed at.”

His mother’s laughter quiets. She steps forward and places a hand on each of his shoulders. “Listen to me,” she says. Her voice is serious, but reassuring. “This may not be the traditional marriage that we were expecting of you. But that doesn’t mean you’re not my son. You understand that, right?”

Hanai nods, and drops his head onto his mother’s shoulder before she can see him absolutely-not-tear-up-in-the-slightest-at-all. She wraps her arms around him and squeezes him tightly, and he’s probably too old to be hugging his mother and not-crying, but he can’t seem to make himself to care about appearances at the moment.

“Besides,” she says, “even if you were, ah, not interested in girls this entire time…” He can almost hear her blush at that. “At the very least, you picked someone good.”

He withdraws from the embrace in time to see Yuu beam with enough force to blind a baseball stadium. “Thanks, Mom!” he chirps cheerfully.

“Mom” looks momentarily taken back by this address, but then seems to catalogue it away as one of the many things she’ll have to get used to, and continues.

“As for your father…” she trails off at her mention of his obvious absence, but then recovers with a soft, exasperated sigh. “It’ll take some time for him to come around, I think. But he will, eventually.”

Hanai’s hopes sink, just a bit. He allows himself a moment of self-pity, and then takes a deep breath and firms himself again. Okay: so it’s not a perfect ending. But it’s not a terrible one, either. He can work with this. There’s going to be a lot he has to talk about; with his parents, his sisters, with Yuu. But none of it seems impossible anymore.

Feeling equal parts dejected, elated, and a little bit reckless, he hooks an arm around Yuu’s and pulls him in close. “So where are we heading now?” he asks, realizing only after asking that the question seems to address not only the day’s events, but their future, as well.

Yuu hops from one foot to the other, apparently excited about finally divulging information about their exact destination. The double meaning of the question seems to go right over his head. “We’re going to look at condos!”

With this, he pulls Hanai forward, and his mother follows them both, an amused expression on her face They walk for a time, Yuu rambling on about the millions of amenities their potential home seems to have. Hanai catches his mother’s eyes. She offers him another encouraging smile, gives them both a calculating once-over, and says:

“So… have you been thinking about kids?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably an unrealistic approach to Japanese dating, which apparently operates in groups at first. Let's just pretend that they move fast in the big city. Anyway: wow, I've been writing this for approximately three years. And, alas, it didn't really improve over that period of time. The upside of it is that my WIP folder just got a little smaller.
> 
> Also, the answer to fourteen-down is the title (sans 'the').


End file.
